5.  The applicants are Mr Vladimir Popov and Mrs Yekaterina Popov née Yakovenko, nationals of Kazakhstan, born in 1983 and 1982 respectively, and their two minor children, who were born in France on 7 April 2004 and 17 March 2007.
6.  The applicants were born in Kazakhstan. They were married on 18 June 2002. In the applicants’ submission they were repeatedly persecuted in their country on account of their Russian origin and their affiliation to the Russian Orthodox Church. On 9 May 2002 the applicant’s father was beaten up in the street and required treatment in hospital. The family filed a complaint and on 5 June 2002 the applicants received, at their house, a visit from unknown individuals of Kazakh origin who asked them to withdraw their complaint and threatened them with reprisals. On 15 July 2002 an incendiary device was thrown into their home through the window, starting a fire, and they were rescued by a neighbour. Following that incident, the applicant’s father left Kazakhstan on 16 August 2002.
7.  On 29 September 2002, when the second applicant was returning home, Kazakh police officers stopped her in the street and questioned her about her father. They took her away and she was beaten up. They tried to shut her in a vehicle and threatened to rape and kill her. She managed to escape. The next day, she went to the casualty department in the town of Taraz to have her injuries recorded and treated. On 2 October 2002 her mother came home having also been beaten up by Kazakh policemen who were looking for her husband. After that incident they moved to the country.
8.  On 28 November 2002 the second applicant was again assaulted. She had gone shopping and did not return until the next day, covered in bruises and blood. Several days later she lost the child she was carrying. She then decided to leave the country and entered France on 15 December 2002 on a two-week visa. After her departure, the applicant, who had filed a complaint, was assaulted by policemen on 10 March 2003. He spent several months in hiding but the authorities found him, confiscated his papers, and threatened to kill him if he did not withdraw his complaint. He too decided to leave the country and joined his wife in France on 19 June 2003.
9.  The applicants each filed an asylum application with the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons (OFPRA) and obtained residence permits. Their asylum applications were rejected on 20 January 2004 on the ground that their statements were “riddled with inconsistencies”, followed “a stereotyped pattern” and were “unconvincing”. On 31 May 2005 the Refugee Appeals Board dismissed their appeals.
10.  On 12 January 2006, having learnt of the murder of the second applicant’s father, after his return to Kazakhstan, the applicants requested a fresh examination of their case by the OFPRA. On 19 January 2006 the OFPRA refused to re-examine the case. On 13 September 2006 the Appeals Board rejected their appeal on the ground that the new fact could not be regarded as established.
11.  They subsequently applied for recognition as stateless persons, but the OFPRA rejected their request on 5 April 2007, on the ground, first, that they had not provided evidence that the Kazakh authorities had withdrawn their nationality and they could not lose that nationality purely of their own volition, and, secondly, that they held passports issued by their national authorities that were valid until 2012. On 25 April 2007 the applicants appealed against that rejection before the Nantes Administrative Court. They subsequently dropped their appeal, however, having obtained refugee status in the meantime (see paragraph 27 below).
12.  On 21 June 2005 the Ardennes prefecture notified the applicants of its refusal to issue them with residence permits and directed them to leave the country within one month.
13.  On 22 November 2005 Mr Popov was arrested during a vehicle check when he was found to be in the country illegally. On the next day he was issued with a removal order and placed in administrative detention in Charleville-Mézières. On 25 November 2005 the liberties and detention judge of the Charleville-Mézières tribunal de grande instance ordered the extension of his detention for fifteen days. On 9 December 2005 the detention was extended for a further fifteen days in order to “enable the enforcement of the removal measure”.
14.  On 28 November 2005 the Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Court rejected Mr Popov’s application for the annulment of the order for his removal to Kazakhstan. On 23 November 2006 the Nancy Administrative Court of Appeal upheld that judgment, finding that he had not adduced any conclusive evidence in support of his allegations that he had been persecuted in his country of origin.
15.  The removal order against the first applicant was not enforced, however, and he was released from the detention centre, as no laissez-passer had been issued.
16.  On 11 October 2006 it was decided to place the applicants in administrative detention but the prefect of the Ardennes ordered them to reside at a specific address, pursuant to Article L. 513-4 of the Entry and Residence of Aliens and Right of Asylum Code (CESEDA). Two attempts to remove the applicants failed as a result of the mobilisation of a support group. The family was thus released.
17.  On 29 January 2007 the Ardennes prefecture rejected a new request for the issuance of a residence permit to the applicants. On the same day, a further decision was delivered imposing on them an obligation to leave the country. On 31 May 2007 the Châlons-en-Champagne Administrative Court dismissed their appeal against that decision.
18.  On 25 June 2008 they again applied for residence permits. As the prefecture failed to respond, the applicants challenged the implicit rejection decision before the Nantes Administrative Court. However, having subsequently obtained refugee status, the applicants withdrew their complaint.
19.  On 27 August 2007 the applicants and their children, who were then under six months and three years, respectively, were apprehended at the home of the applicant’s mother, who was accommodating them, and taken into police custody. After a long wait, the Maine-et-Loire prefecture ordered their administrative detention in a hotel in Angers. On 28 August 2007 the applicants and their children were transferred to Charles-de-Gaulle airport pending their removal to Kazakhstan. However, the flight scheduled for the early afternoon was cancelled, without the prefecture having been informed, and the removal could not therefore be carried out. It was only in the evening that the applicants and their children were transferred, in a police van, to the administrative detention centre of Rouen‑Oissel.
20.  That centre, even though it is mentioned on the list of centres that cater for families, does not have any real leisure or learning area. Whilst one wing is reserved for families and single women, the atmosphere there is distressing and stressful, with a lack of privacy and a high level of tension. Announcements via loud-speakers reverberate throughout the centre and exacerbate the feeling of stress. The Oissel centre, at the time of the applicants’ detention, was not equipped with the basic facilities for the detention of young children (it had metal beds with pointed corners, no cots, just a few toys in the corner of a room, etc.). The only outdoor area is a courtyard, concreted over and with wire netting over the top, and the bedroom windows are covered with a tight grill obscuring the view to the outside ...
The eldest child refused to eat in the centre and showed signs of anxiety and stress. The parents had to negotiate with the police to recover their personal belongings, including the milk they had brought for the infant. They were only able to receive one short visit during their detention, as it was not easy to gain access to the centre.
21.  On 29 August 2007 the liberties and detention judge of the Rouen tribunal de grande instance ordered the extension of the detention measure for fifteen days, after observing that the maintaining of a family in detention was not in breach of the decree of 30 May 2005 on administrative detention and holding areas and that their transfer to Rouen‑Oissel was not vitiated by any defect. The decision also mentioned the loss of the second applicant’s Kazakh nationality but it was found that this could not justify release, as the Administrative Court alone had jurisdiction to decide if that situation would have any consequences. On 30 August 2007 the Rouen Court of Appeal upheld the extension decision.
(b)  Second attempt to remove applicants
22.  Having been held in the detention centre since 28 August 2007, the applicants were again transferred to Roissy Charles-de-Gaulle airport pending their removal on 11 September 2007, the flight being scheduled for the early afternoon. It did not go ahead, however. The applicants were not taken back to the Rouen-Oissel centre until the evening, without any measure of placement in a detention facility being decided at Roissy during that period. The prefect then applied to the Rouen liberties and detention judge to have the applicants’ detention extended for a further fifteen days, relying solely on the argument that the non-enforcement of the removal order could be attributed to the applicants themselves (CESEDA, Article L. 552-7). The applicants complained about the conditions of their detention and its length, arguing that the authorities had failed to prove that the length of the measure was strictly necessary.
23.  On the same day the applicants submitted to the Court, under Rule 39 of the Rules of Court, a request for the suspension of the removal measure. The Court declined to indicate an interim measure in response to that request.
24.  On 12 September 2007 the liberties and detention judge found that there was no evidence to show that the applicants had deliberately impeded their removal, because the documents concerning the circumstances of the attempt expressly stated that “no refusal to board the plane was recorded on 11 September 2007”, and he ordered their release, with the obligation to leave France being maintained. The prefect appealed against that decision but without seeking suspensive effect. The applicants were thus released from the detention centre.
25.  On 14 September 2007 the Rouen Court of Appeal set aside the liberties and detention judge’s decision and extended the administrative detention measure for fifteen days, finding that it could be seen from certain documents in the file that the applicants had indeed prevented their removal (an e-mail from one of the border police officers mentioning the need for an escort to carry out the removal the next time, in view of Mrs Popov’s reaction). It had been found that the next flight with an escort for the applicants’ removal would not be available before 18 September 2007, and the prefect had not therefore shown a lack of diligence in organising the departure and limiting the length of the detention. He had thus been justified in seeking an extension of the administrative detention pending the organisation of a fresh removal. That decision was not enforced.
26.  Before their arrest the applicants had filed a fresh request to be granted refugee status. In a decision of 6 September 2007 the OFPRA rejected the request on account of the very general nature of the alleged facts, finding that this, together with the unlikely claim of blackmail on the part of the Kazakh authorities, precluded the establishment of their veracity. The OFPRA further stated that as the allegation that the applicants had lost their nationality had not been corroborated, the request for re-examination had to be rejected. The applicants appealed against that decision.
27.  On 16 July 2009 the National Asylum Tribunal granted the applicants refugee status, finding that the enquiries made by the Ardennes prefecture vis-à-vis the Kazakh authorities, in breach of the confidentiality of asylum applications, had exposed the applicants to danger in the event of their return to Kazakhstan, and that their loss of Kazakh nationality, in August 2007 and April 2008 respectively, whilst not per se constituting persecution, did not, however, preclude the granting of refugee status.